Director's Cut: Rainbow Arabia's "Omar K"

We talk to director Keith Musil about his werewolf-crazed new video.

From "Ashes to Ashes" to "November Rain" to "1234", great music videos are quick bursts of sound and vision that leave an indelible impression. Director's Cut is a new Pitchfork News feature in which we chat with music video directors about their creations. The men and women behind the camera are often overlooked in today's YouTube era, but this feature aims to highlight their hard work while showcasing the best videos currently banging around the internet. A little behind-the-scenes dirt couldn't hurt, too.

This time, we chatted with Keith Musil, who directed the werewolves-in-a-supermarket clip for "Omar K" by tribal-funk duo Rainbow Arabia. Starring married band members Danny Preston (as a wary supermarket employee) and Tiffany Preston (as his hirsute significant other)-- not to mention a heavily bearded child-- the video finally answers the question: What would happen if a wolf-woman got caught in the frozen food section during a full moon? Watch the video and read our interview with Musil after the jump:

Rainbow Arabia: "Omar K"

Pitchfork: What sparked the idea for this video?

Keith Musil: I was watching Teen Wolf one night and thought, "Oh shit, I need to recreate something like that scene where the werewolf's on top of the van." Then I thought it would be even better if it were a fashion-y female werewolf. And I wanted it to take place in real life-- not some fantasy werewolf land. Because, in Teen Wolf, he just turns into a wolf and everyone accepts it like it's no big deal.

I thought of this huge concept with a married couple where the husband was this responsible figure taking care of his havoc-causing werewolf wife. But when I asked the band what the song really meant, [singer and werewolf] Tiffany [Preston] was like, "I was thinking about these poor kids in third world countries when I wrote it." So I was like, "Well, I'm not going to do some kind of donation video." But we did incorporate a kid. [laughs]

Pitchfork: That kid is probably the most memorable part of the video. How did that come about?

KM: There's something about putting kids in situations where you wouldn't normally see them-- that's a huge trend in scary movies now just because you're not used to seeing some kid with a butcher knife stab his parents. Anytime you do something like that, you're going to turn heads. When I initially had the idea I was like, "God, I'm such a fucking sell out." But still, no one had seen a bearded kid with a tomahawk. [laughs]

The kid, Jonah, was Tiffany's nephew. He was a real trooper. But we could only use the supermarket from 9 p.m. to whenever the store opened and he's used to going to bed at 7. So it was really important to keep him entertained and filled up with chocolate. I had another camera crew follow him around the grocery store and let him do anything he wanted just to keep him running. One of the ideas Jonah had was for someone to sit in a chair and he would smack the person in the back of the head. So this poor cameraman let the kid repeatedly slap him for about eight takes.

Pitchfork: The video has a pretty professional look, which is surprising since it's for such a small band.

KM: I was fortunate enough to pull in a [director of photography] I've worked with before named Starr Whitesides, who did it for next to nothing. He shot the videos for Lil Wayne's "Lollipop" and Devendra Banhart's "Carmensita". You'll definitely see a lot of him as the years go on.

Most of the budget went to our camera department and then about $500 went into the beards and makeup-- beards are actually really expensive for some reason. I squeezed that whole video out of $2,200. And [band member] Danny [Preston]'s step-brother ran the supermarket we used. You gotta do what you gotta do when there's no money involved. I always make the joke to musicians that music videos have to be considered a civil service. There are a lot of really talented people struggling.

But, because of the YouTube culture and the fact that your grandma can post a video to the web, there's a lot of garbage, super lo-fi music videos out there. That aesthetic works with someone like Ariel Pink because his music is lo-fi, but when you apply that style to something else it can be excessive.

Pitchfork: I think the thing that separates this video from other similarly out-there clips is its sense of humor.

KM: With the internet culture, you really only have 15 seconds to grab the audience. That's it. Shooting a music video is like telling a good joke-- that one-two punch is the best way to go. And I didn't want it to come off as weird for the sake of being weird. That's so typical in the music video world now. I've talked to a lot of kids who are starting to come up in music videos who are like, "I'm making a video so that gives me the latitude to do whatever the fuck I want." That's crazy to me. It's a cop out.